The Religious History of Manchester

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Is God a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew or none of these? Probably not an atheist and by definition can’t be an agnostic. If He or She or It is, say, a Protestant (having changed from something else thanks to Martin Luther, whom God surely influenced, if you don’t believe in Deism (you see how complicated this is getting?) then God could be an Anglican, a Methodist, Baptist, Thraskite, Muggletonian, Antinomian, Anti-Sabbatarian, Quaker or Shaker.

The religious history of Manchester is one of sects and schisms; attacks on houses of worship and on peoples of different worship. The Jacobites, supporting the Catholic Stuarts, attacked the Cross Street Chapel, where the congregation wanted a Protestant king. Orange Order marches would end in violence as people from the same country, worshipping the same religion (sort of) clashed.

Later came tolerance, and now the city’s worshippers, either Christians, Jews, Muslims or Hindus, mostly, get on.

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Manchester News

BOOK A TALK WITH MANCHESTER’S WITTIEST PUBLIC SPEAKER: ED GLINERT

If you don’t fancy a walk, book a talk. What a great idea for your social club, U3A group, Probus set, National Trust outfit, local history society; to book New Manchester Walks’ Ed Glinert to give an illustrated talk on one of a huge variety of subjects, especially on Peterloo what with the 200th anniversary in 2019, for which Glinert has already been booked by the Lit & Phil, Central Library, the Portico Library, Hale WI… He had 65 people at Central Library for the Town Hall Murals recently and about 150 at Knutsford Methodist Church for Marx & Engels in Manchester. Continue reading →